The room fell silent. Tension could be cut with a knife. A shiver raced down Paul’s spine. He was terrified, his hands sweating. But at the same time, his heart was racing, not from fear, but from excitement. He rubbed his bandage.

  Around him, the team stood frozen. Even Lena’s usual sneer had vanished. They all knew this wasn’t just a mission. This was the first tremor of an earthquake.

  “We will all be heading to the designated location, the independent Vermillion city. Full team will be deployed” Elizabeth explained after a brief pause. “Kana, I also called you here because this means you will have to land with us” She added while she continued scrolling her tablet.

  Kana didn’t know how to digest this. There were a lot of things she didn’t understand, but she could feel the uneasiness that enveloped the entire room. She had been living in that ship for two weeks, not engaging at all in the rescue missions themselves, but this time the girl would have to descend with the team and probably get in danger. She had been brave since the day her life changed forever, but this time it was different,

  Everyone left the room, leaving a huge contrast with their usual quirky personalities, or so thought Kana, while she waited there for a bit more. She took a deep breath, looked around at the now empty room, and finally abandoned the place.

  Through her return walk, she found Paul leaning on a wall, quietly looking at the vast sky. Even though he usually was full of energy, Kana also managed to find sometimes this more reserved side of him.

  “Hey, what are you doing there?” Kana asked him once she was near enough, taking him by surprise. He widened his eyes and stopped his peculiar activity.

  “Nothing much, just thinking about… everything I guess” He replied once recomposed. Kana smiled at him, realizing she wasn’t the only one feeling unease about the recent meeting,

  “That Angel thing, right? I don’t even know what it is about, but it feels creepy” She tried to make the situation more digestible, taking off the seriousness it had been presented with.

  “Ah, yeah…” Paul appreciated her attempt to trivialize things. He liked that side of her, the ordinarily with she lived everything resonated with him. In that sense, he felt they were similar in some way. “I don’t know much either, I lost my memories after the Second Angel War” He added in a melancholy disguised as unconcern. “And Eli hasn’t told me much about it either. Just that it is a formidable enemy from the Corruption.” He ended.

  They prolonged the silence, until an occurrence came.

  “Wait, where is the damn cyber-demon when one needs her?” Paul questioned at the air, remembering how Airis would spy in every single conversation held in the aircraft.

  “[Updating user opinion. Opinion lowered by 3. Current score: 88 out of 100]” Airis interrupted out of nowhere.

  “Sorry about that, Airis. Could you tell us about the angel, please?” Kana gently asked, formal as always.

  “Angel is a word designated for highest-rank Corruption entity. Example: In the Second Angel War, there were 2,613,271 casualties and around 80,000,000 people were affected by collateral damages. Note: Official media covered it up as the Great Middle Asia Earthquake 4 years ago.” Airis explained in her usual soft voice. Although this time it wasn’t robotic rhythm, this time the speech felt straighter than usual.

  Kana had heard about said ‘earthquake’. She remembered seeing all those images of devastated cities and collapsed buildings, rivers out of flow, people struggling to escape the remainings… She wondered, how could a single entity, as Airis called, provoke such a destruction like that by itself alone. With that knowledge, Kana understood now a little better what the Corruption was capable of.

  “Won’t it be too dangerous if I go there then?” Kana asked. Rather than her own security, she was more concerned whether she was going to be a deadweight to the group.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe!” Paul extended his hand, eyes sparkling “I promise.”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Kana smiled. In a small span of time, she managed to be fond of Paul. From the moment they met, a special connection had tied their lives together, be it for good or worse. She shook Paul hand.

  “It’s a promise then, you better not break it” She softly laughed.

  “Don’t worry too much about it. Besides, Alice will be there, when you see her in action you will understand there’s nothing to worry about at all.” He added later.

  Kana started to walk out with her hands intertwined at her low back, direction to the dormitory area. Paul stared at her, confused about her abrupt end of conversation. A few steps, Kana turned to him.

  “But she hasn’t promised anything to me, right?” Leaning, Kana winked an eye. Then, she motioned him to be silent, before finally leaving with a warm smile.

  “What is that supposed to mean…” Paul murmured watching her turn the corner.

  In her room, Kana spent a considerable chunk of the afternoon asking Airis all sorts of questions about angels, the Corruption… She didn’t find too much, though. Apparently since her being in the ship didn’t mean she was part of the crew, a lot of information had to be denied by Airis by the infamous [Access denied] system message. Up until now, she hadn’t encountered much trouble accessing data, but crossing the Angel limit was far beyond her possibilities. Frustrated, she left the room, only to bump into Lena.

  “I’ve been waiting for you” Lena told out of nowhere.

  “What? why?” She left out under a surprised face.

  “I’m going to train you. Hurry up, we’re landing tomorrow, there isn’t too much time left” Lena ordered without hesitation, already heading somewhere.

  “Train?”

  She followed Lena through the corridor. They turned two corners and ended in a section Kana had never accessed before. Lena remained silent through all the way, slowly walking with her arms crossed, but maintaining elegance in every step. Kana kept wondering why she would take her to train so suddenly, when all she had done in the airship so far was taking classes from Airis, getting regular checks from the doctor and prepare dinner from time to time.

  They finally arrived a spacious, big in the ship standards room. It was all painted a clean pristine white, from walls to the ceiling including the floor. There wasn’t a single crack or stain. It was so white it was hypnotic, making Kana feel an odd dizziness.

  “This is the training room” Lena took some steps, letting some meters separate them. Then, she slowly threw something similar to a pistol, which Kana barely caught after some slips. “Since you still can’t use any power from your Stigma itself, I’ve taken the luxury of preparing this weapon for you in advance.”

  Lena then proceeded to explain how the weapon worked. It was no different from a gun, but instead of bullets it consumed the user’s Stigma Corruption to attack. It even resembled in appearance the typical semi-automatic handgun. The weapon was supposed to be a shortcut for someone to be able to use Corruption, with the big downside of it being quite weaker than common Stigmas. Still, it was enough self-defence for someone like her.

  “Now, take off the safe and shoot me” Lena suddenly asked her, straight eyes locked on the newbie girl. Kana hesitated “Come on, just do it”

  “If you insist…” She did as she had been ordered. Kana took off the safe, after a couple of failed attempts, and aimed towards the lady in front of her. Closed her eyes and with a trembling finger, pulled the trigger. The sound blew out Kana’s eardrums; the recoil nearly dislocated her shoulder. Instants later, a bullet-like object emitting intense light left the barrel, heading directly towards Lena’s chest. She easily avoided it with a gracile movement of waist, showing off insane reflexes. The bullet hit the wall, scattering like the inner roots of a tree, until the branches slowly vanished in the remaining whiteness.

  “Not bad, it had enough power” Lena commented tickling her chin. “Again”.

  They spent what was left of the afternoon and part of the night in the room, practicing shoot after shoot. Hours later, Kana couldn’t land a single shot against her not sweating training opponent. Eventually, a light-headed Kana let the gun slip from her hand.

  “Sorry…I don’t feel well” Kana apologized, measuring her forehead heat.

  “It seems your Stigma has reached its limit” A surprising empathic Lena said “It’s enough for today” she claimed raising her voice. Relief sailed through Kana’s head when she heard those heavenly words. They both left the room soon after, heading towards their rooms.

  Once there, Kana politely thanked Lena before bidding farewell. She entered her room and went to check a flowerpot he had recently set up in her table, though it still was just a sprout,— Come on, grow already — she gently moved it side to side, like some kind of ritual, before finally speeding towards the toilet. She looked at herself in the mirror, complaining about the mess her hair had become, and then burst into the shower.

  After a long meditative shower, she put on a towel and left the bathroom. She opened the wardrobe, looking for her pyjamas. While dressing, she glanced at the flowerpot once again. Something puzzled her, so she took a deeper look.

  “Was this thing this tall before” She finally came to a thought.

  Once she addressed it and realized it was silly, Kana jumped into the bed, closing her eyes.

  After all, tomorrow she would land in an unknown city to her and would be involved in some kind of important mission.

  Mission #38 began at dawn.

  And Kana was utterly unprepared.